In his first appearance since a heart attack two weeks ago, Sen. Bernie Sanders dismissed questions about his current health during Tuesday night’s Democratic presidential debate in Ohio.
Before Erin Burnett of CNN, one of the debate’s three moderators, could finish a question about his health, Sanders interrupted, saying he was “healthy” and “feeling great” before insisting on responding to an earlier question about the opioid crisis.
New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker joked that Sanders is in favor of medical marijuana to which Sanders responded that though he does support it, he was “not on it tonight.”
Completing her question, Burnett pressed the Vermont senator on how he could assure Democratic voters that he can handle the “stress of the presidency.”
Sanders, who had a heart attack and surgery to unclog an artery on Oct. 1, invited everyone to attend his campaign rally scheduled for Saturday in Queens, New York, to see how well he is doing.
“We are going to be mounting a vigorous campaign all over this country. That is how I think I can reassure the American people,” the Vermont senator said.
Sanders, 78, thanked his fellow presidential candidates and people across the country for their support during his recovery and said that he was just “so happy to be back here with you this evening.”
Former Vice President Joe Biden, 76, and Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren, 70, were also asked whether their ages should be a concern for voters.
Both responded that they were fit to serve in the White House and Biden said that he would release his medical records before the Iowa caucuses in early February.
Sanders, Biden and Warren had all previously committed to making their medical histories public, but have yet to do so. In an interview with ABC on Sunday, Sanders said that “when you’re running for president of the United States, the American people have a right to know the condition of your health.”
As in the previous three debates, the Vermont senator’s Medicare for All proposal was the center of contention during the contest among the 12 Democratic presidential candidates.
However, Biden, Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar and South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg did not attack Sanders for his health care plan, instead setting their sights on Warren, who has risen to the top of the Democratic field in recent weeks.
The Massachusetts senator has fully endorsed Sanders’ Medicare for All bill, but has shied away from saying it would raise taxes on middle-income families — something Sanders readily admits it would do.
Moderators along with Buttigieg, Klobuchar and Biden all asked Warren to clarify if the program would indeed mean more of a tax burden on working families, but she refused to say it would, and maintained it would lower costs for families while raising costs for corporations.
Sanders, who remained calm throughout much of the debate, became clearly irritated with the criticisms of his proposal and the assault on Warren.
“The issue is whether the Democratic Party has the guts to stand up to the health care industry, which made $100 billion in profit. Whether we have the guts to stand up to the corrupt price fixing pharmaceutical industry, which is charging the highest prices in the world for prescription drugs,” Sanders said.
“If we don’t have the guts to do that and all we can do is take their money. We should be ashamed of ourselves,” he added.
Sanders’ appearance at the debate marks his return to the campaign trail after the two weeks he took to recover in Vermont.
On Saturday he will hold, what his campaign is calling, the “Bernie’s Back” rally in New York City, but it remains unclear what his schedule will look like moving forward — this is in spite of his comments during the debate that he will “mount a vigorous campaign.” Last week he was forced to walk back comments that he would cut back his campaign events.
On Tuesday night, the Washington Post reported that Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., would attend the Saturday rally and formally endorse Sanders for president.
